The Storm Generation

Literary LEO was founded in 1993 as an open forum
for unpublished, original work, representing the creative
voice of our city. Among the contributors to that first issue
was Kentucky’s outlaw poet, Ron Whitehead, who is also
the subject of Jinn Bug’s first-place black and white photo
“Iconoclast,” published on this issue’s cover. Based on
technique, composition and artistic merit alone, Jinn Bug
submitted a first-place photo. That the subject and title
represent Literary LEO so fittingly magnifies its creative
impact.

In his poem “The Storm Generation Manifesto,” Whitehead,
and co-author Olafur Gunnarson, describe a new generation
of artists who “tip their hats to the lost and the beat” and “know
that the shortest distance between two points is creative
distance.” Count the artists in this issue among that “fucking
storm,” telling truth through creative expression, documenting
the beauty in the point we inhabit even as they envision an
ideal beyond.